Where Everybody's Crazy

Since we're still using steam-powered televisions here in Wales, I only just caught the End of Days episode of Torchwood.

Just in case you didn't see it, the plot goes something like this: there's something fundamentally wrong, a rift in the universe, which is getting worse; people are tempted to open the rift further, but beneath the rift lies the beast Abbadon who has been sealed away before time and is trying to destroy the world; the man who can't die is taken into an epic battle with the beast; the power of life is more than the beast can stand, and destroys it; everyone thinks that the man is dead, but after a little while he comes back to life; the women see him first, then he pardons the man who betrayed him, before he is inexplicably taken away.

It's a good story, but I doubt it will catch on.

I'm not saying that Russel T deliberately set out to get across any kind of Christian message. Definitely not. He set out to tell a good story, and he did that, either consciously or unconsciously, by evoking some of the great themes from the mythology of our society. As Tolkien put it, the Christian story is a great myth that happens to be true.

On the other hand, I will look forward to seeing clips from the episode again soon at a church near me. And I personally prefer the Torchwood-style Christus Victor (classical) interpretation of the Cross rather than the legal fiction view because, well, they're only interpretations, so let's have the one that makes a better story...

I'm finding an awful lot of depth in Doctor Who of late, with lots of resurrection/mission metaphors:

Doctor: And this is a brand new planet Earth. No denying the existence of aliens now, everyone saw it. Everything's new.

Rose: And what about you? What are you going to do next?

Doctor: Well, back to the Tardis, same old life.

Rose: What, on your own?

Doctor: Why, don't you want to come?

Rose: Well, yeah.

Doctor: Do you though? I just thought, 'cos I'd changed...

Rose: Yeah, I thought 'cos you'd changed...

Mickey: You're never going to stay, are you?

Rose: There's just so much out there; so much to see. I've got to.

Jackie: Well, I reckon you're mad, the pair of you. It's like you go looking for trouble.

Doctor: Trouble's just the bits in between! It's all waiting out there, Jackie. Everything's brand new to me. All those planets, creatures and horizons. Haven't seen them yet... not with these eyes. And it is going to be... fantastic.

But after the mission, there's the whole reentry syndrome:

Sarah-Jane: You know what the most difficult thing was? Coping with what happens next - or what doesn't happen next. You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, you showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles, and you just dropped me back on Earth. How could anything compare to that?

Doctor: All those things you saw, you want me to apologize for that?

Sarah-Jane: No, but... we get a taste of that splendour, and then we have to go back.